Display equipment, display method, and storage medium storing a display control program using sub-pixels

Abstract

In a display device, three light-emitting elements, which respectively emit light of the three primary colors of R, G, and B, are aligned in a fixed order in a first direction to form one pixel. A plurality of such pixels are aligned in a the direction to form one line. A plurality of such lines are aligned in a second direction, which is orthogonal to the first direction, to form a display screen. With this display device, a three-times magnified pattern, with which a target pixel in a raster image to be displayed currently is magnified by three in the first direction, is determined dynamically in accordance with a rectangular reference pattern of 3×3 pixels consisting of the target pixel and pixels surrounding the target pixel. Display is performed upon allocating this three-times magnified pattern to the three light-emitting elements that comprise one pixel. Character interval adjustment and color display of sub-pixel precision precision are enabled.

Description

[0001]This patent application claims the benefit of priority, under 35 U.S.C. §120, as a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 907,550, filed Jul. 17, 2001 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,992, entitled “DISPLAY EQUIPMENT, DISPLAY METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM STORING A DISPLAY CONTROL PROGRAM USING SUB-PIXELS”, hereby incorporated herein by reference, in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]This invention concerns a display equipment, which performs display at sub-pixel precision based on an original image, which is not a vector image but a raster image (pixel precision: in the case of a font, means not a vector font but a raster font), and art related to this display equipment.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]Display equipment that employs various types of display devices is in common use. Such display devices include color LCD's, color plasma displays, and other display devices, in which three light-emitting elements...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0027]A second object of this invention is to resolve the above-described second problem by providing a display equipment, with which character strings can be formatted in a finer manner and which enables displays that excels in uniformity as a whole.

[0060]By this arrangement, computer operations are facilitated and the ease of use by one skilled in the art is improved.

Problems solved by technology

There are also many display devices having relatively narrow display screens which make detailed display difficult to achieve.

When an attempt is made to display a small character, photograph, or complex picture, etc. on a small display device, part of the image tends to become smeared and unclear.

However, since color irregularities will occur if display is performed as it is, a filtering process, using factors such as shown in FIG.

In particular, an art that requires large system resources is difficult to employ in a portable telephone, mobile computer, etc. where there are several limitations in terms of system resource.

Furthermore, since the art is premised on the ability to statically use the three-time magnified image itself, a display, with which the definition has been magnified by three, cannot be performed, for example, for a facial portrait image or other arbitrary image that has been downloaded from a server.

The prior art has the above-described first problem that, although sub-pixel precision display is not impossible, the burden placed on the system resources is large and the range in which sub-pixel display can be performed is limited.

Also, with the prior art, there is a difficulty in terms of adjustment of the character intervals.

However with the prior art, the positions of these four images are set in pixel units and cannot be adjusted more finely.

There is thus the second problem that when viewed as a whole, a character string, such as “This”, is not fixed in pitch and was thus non-uniform.

17(a), since the character intervals can only be adjusted at pixel precision, the character intervals tend to be non-uniform.

The prior-art display method enables only a binary black-white display (or a gray-scale display of low gradation) and cannot accommodate the case where at least one of the foreground or background is in color.

Images